Helene Wecker "The Golem and the Jinni"
“Though until now I would have said that they surpass those here in both beauty and pride. And now, I find my assumptions are shaken.”
- Jinni talking about women from Syria with newly met woman - Chapter 7 - p. 119
To all casual appearances it was an undistinguished storefront tobacconist’s, set above a saloon and below a brothel. The distant overhead rhythm of thumping furniture punctuated most of the transactions. It was run by a fence named Conroy, a small, neat Irishman. Conroy’s eyes were sharp and intelligent behind his round spectacles, and he carried an air of quiet precision. He seemed to be in charge of a collection of heavily muscled men.
- Chapter 11 - p. 177
“A man tells you to believe, and you believe?”
“It depends on the man. Besides, you believe the stories that you were told. Have you met a jinni who could grant wishes?”
“No, but that ability has all but disappeared.”
“So, it’s just stories now. And perhaps the humans did create their God. But does that make him less real? Take this arch. They created it. Now it exists.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t grant wishes,” he said. “It doesn’t do anything.”
“True,” she said. “But I look at it, and I feel a certain way. Maybe that’s its purpose.”
- Chapter 16 - p. 267
For weeks now he’d tried to relegate her to some remote corner of his mind, only to have her reemerge when least wanted. Perhaps he was going about it the wrong way; he’d never tried to forget anyone before. But then, he’d never needed to. Relationships between jinn were altogether different. A tryst could be calm or volatile, could last a day or an hour or years on end - and often overlapped with one another in a way that the residents of Little Syria would find completely amoral - but always they were impermanent.
- Chapter 23 - p. 429